Before I give my opinions on all things that have been mentioned throughout this thread, I would like to clarify some basic concepts regarding the Arcane Charges by a series of basic questions:

Of how many Charges we are talking about? 4? A greater number of Charges would give more play in rotations, however, also it would cost more work accumulating all.

Do Arcane Charges should expire as they do now? (Currently they have a life span of about 10 seconds) And if they expire ... do they disappear all at once or they would go losing one by one?

Do the benefits/detriments of Arcane Charges will be global to all spells or else every spell will get an individual benefit/detriment of their own? In theory I am in favor of the former, yet some spells could have side effects on the basis of the number of Arcane Charges available or maybe some spell may require a minimum number of Charges to be casted.

What exactly would be the benefits/detriments that would offer the Arcane Charges? Historically we have had:

- Benefits: increase the damage of Arcane spells, increase the haste of Arcane Blast, increase the number of targets hit by Arcane Barrage, increase mana regeneration of Evocation.

- Detriments: increase mana cost of Arcane Blast.

I was thinking about 4 charges max - not too much, so the ramp-up isn't long, also that is in line with the 4 stacks of Arcane Blast, that were only once altered to 6 charges and it hasn't lasted long.

I'm not sure about expiring of charges. I'd have preferred for them to not expire, however that will lead to the necessity of building them up prior to the boss fight, which is a bad design. On the other hand, if there's no target to hit atm (e.g. a brief phase of boss immunity), then you have no way to build up charges and use Mana Gem to restore some mana. Maybe the best solution would be Destruction warlock type - if you have no charge, then 1 charge regenerates overtime by itself, but if you have more then 1 - they will slowly degenerate, say, 1 charge per 10 seconds.

It would definitely be fun if all spells were altered by charges, but I'm afraid that could be too complex a mechanic. Arcane defensive capabilities are quite limited, while a spec based on Arcane by definition should have many tricks up its sleeve - hell, this magic school gives an ability to teleport, become invisible, bend the flow of time and space, affect gravity, conjure up stuff, but doesn't give any survivability bar the basic mage stuff and Slow. Theoretically things like Empowered Blink could be introduced - spends 1 charge and makes you phased out for 4 sec after Blink reducing the chance you'll be hit by 50%. Empowered ABarr spends 1 additional charge (takes priority over normal 1 AC damage boost consumption) to knock back its target. Empowered Slow - the target affected by Slow will have it's next cast reflected to a random player of opposing team (a damaging spell will reflect to target's teammate or him/herself, a beneficial spell will reflect to you or a random ally). Empowered Mana Gem - will also restore health in addition to mana. And so on. This empowering effect may work as a Soul Burn for Affliction and have 15-30 sec cooldown. Various effects may require different number of charges to spend. As for damage and manacost increase provided by charges, I think those should be limited to arcane spells only.

Arcane Charges should provide a damage increase of arcane spells, work as a resource for casting certain more powerful spells and/or to empower spells as suggested above in this post. A downside would be the increased mana cost of spells that gain damage boosts via AC.

On first glance I like most of it, there is s decent mix of simplicity and complexity. What I don't like is having an execute option which is just meh for me personally. What I like a lot is the Explosion change. I'll comment a bit more later when the discussion gets going.

TBH I'm more mad that we DON'T have one.

Have you seen Destro on add fights? Shadowburn is retarded

Arcane Charges
One problem I see off the bat though is "Maximum 4 AC" and then "Crits generate 2 AC". The problem with this not only is wasted AC, but it's unexpected AC being wasted. It works for Rogues getting extra CP for two reasons: The first being if they aren't casting (melee skills) 100% of the time, they aren't necessarily losing DPS due to how Energy works. The second, they have a talent that allows them to STORE 5 additional CP. Now if we could get something that lets us STORE 2 extra AC, then this would be fine. (and yes, it HAS to be TWO because if you crit an ABL at 2 AC and then your already-queued-up-ABL-because-we-cast-spells crits, you'll hit 6AC, the highest possible unexpected maximum. Critting at 3AC will bring you to 5, but you were expected to hit 4 anyways, so you won't be queuing up another ABL)

Temporal Rift
I see another weird issue with Temporal Rift at Execute range. If it's using 4AC and a ton of mana, what's the no cooldown part for?

A. No cooldown, but 4AC? That doesn't really do much when you have to regenerate 4AC to cast it again
B1. Arcane Power + No cooldown? Understandable, but it uses a ton of mana
--B2. Can't use Mana Gem to get mana back to TR more

This system is just a bit weird and definitely counter-intuitive.

The execute-benefit can include the no CD, sure, but that shouldn't be the striking factor unless you also include one of two things:

1. Lowers AC cost to 2/1/0(probably TOO strong) so you don't have to regenerate AC for it (Removes point A)
2. Lowers Mana cost dramatically of TR (Removes point B1; B2 still stands, but is greatly diminished by this)

Personally, and based on how Arcane works, I would LOVE to see #1 implemented on top of the no CD. It wouldn't be instant, so you could still interrupt it, but you could expend a huge amount of mana for back to back huge attacks (similar to the old Arcane Blast burn phase in Cataclysm), with each one diminishing in damage (and slight mana cost) due to spending your AC.

Mobility
Interesting take on mobility. Reminds me of Boomkins when they spam (and move while casting ==>) Moonfire.

Some smaller things that don't get a separate section
- Not sure exactly how Arcane Missiles works in, other than keeping it for familiarity's sake.
- Arcane Instability wouldn't work that way, and would need to be "refunds 30% of the TOTAL (important to use that word) mana cost if the spell critically hits" ("Total" is important because it implies AC increased mana costs will be refunded too, unless you meant just the base) [Essentially, Master of Elements worked how it did because of technical limitations, as Mana is one of the first things to go when calculating spells]
- Arcane Explosion is a superb idea, but instead of a 10s duration, it should be "Lasts until cancelled", but have a 10s cooldown. Essentially, it'd be a "mini-stance", similar to Blade Flurry (Combat Rogue) and Fire and Brimstone in 5.3 (Destro Warlock). Otherwise, why have the same cooldown AND duration? It'd be a QoL choice to make it unlimited duration.
- Repulsion is interesting, but I feel like the Evo part should be a passive bonus of it.
- With NT gone as a DoT, does that mean Arcane gets ZERO DoTs? I'd recommend working one in, even if it's tiny like "ABL also leaves a small residue of Arcane Power on an enemy, inflicting a very small portion of damage over time (as in like 100 damage every second for 12 seconds)", purely to allow Arcane to use DoT trinkets like LotC and BotH. (Remember Baleroc's trinket? STILL mad I was never able to use it with Arcane >:| )

Looks pretty good though. Definitely seems LOADS more fun than the crap design it's in atm!

(Also, if Arcane gets a revamp, I demand Fire does too because of the staggering RNG and retarded scaling issues it has, such as crit being TOO good for it)

---------- Post added 2013-05-12 at 12:51 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Shangalar

I need to take a moment and ask this:

What's the point of the whole mana regen with Evo and Mana Gem if we have no interaction with mana through your reworked Mastery?

Arcane is the only dps spec which has some form of mana management included because of our Mastery. Blizzard have moved away from mana dependancy for dps spec and Arcane is the only one left.

If you remove our current Mastery or change it in a way that removes the damage/mana component, then the whole point of mana regen becomes pointless.

If Arcane is revamped, it will either completely move away from mana and give us a rotation like other dps have OR they will keep our current Mastery snd just change/add/remove spells to work around it. The middle ground which you suggest is senseless in that way.

Shang, I'd like to point out that the TRUE design of Arcane actually has little to do with Mana. Expending more mana won't increase your DPS, it simply decreases it. (Unless you're going full burn Haste Invo build, in which case you just drain it and nothing changes). The only "mana" part is that you're forced to stand in a rune to keep it up, or keep using Invocation when it's empty.

This new design, however, DOES play a greater role with mana but, rather, a more proactive-and-reactive approach. However, it also regresses Arcane back to a time when you had to wand to get mana. (Okay, maybe not THAT far back, but mana will be an issue).

Expending mana can increase your DPS (More ABLs = more damage, Temporal Rift = more damage, etc). The tradeoff is that you use mana for these spells to gain more damage. If you expend all your mana, you can wait for your super-slow regen, use Evocation (if it's off CD), or use some of your charges to get some Mana back (think MW monks with Mana Tea).

In a similar stance, "Arcane being the only class that is around mana for DPS" is actually 100% false. Arcane (Live) not only has little to NOTHING to do with Mana, but Destruction Warlocks actually DO have a role with mana (though a small one at that). If they get too low, they need to decide to pop a Chaos Bolt now with little to no proccs (weaker CB) or to try and wait for a procc before using CB and/or going oom (Risk of having no mana, causing some casting loss, but stronger CB). It's not much, but I'd definitely say that they play a bigger mana game than we do.

Perhaps there could be a toggle-able ability that drains more mana for more damage (like Live Arcane Power, but in a different sense) [Also, if anyone's played League of Legends, I'm essentially referring to Muramana's (Manamune with 750/750 bonus Mana) toggle ability, which lets you expend mana for more damage on basic attacks, or additional mana for your skills as well]. This is all just a design written up, but something we can all agree on is that Blizzard is full of themselves if they think Arcane actually plays some real role with mana. Just because our Mastery is tied to it doesn't mean shit at this point.

Blue tweet:Will enhancement get a overhaul/ new resource system anytime soon? Feels old and clunky and enhance got so much potential!
Overall, we don't foresee adding new resources (like Holy Power or Embers) to any existing classes or specs soon. (Source)

Oh well, I guess there won't be any new resource system for Arcane in the next expac. Maybe they at least scrap Mana Adept....

Blue tweet:Will enhancement get a overhaul/ new resource system anytime soon? Feels old and clunky and enhance got so much potential!
Overall, we don't foresee adding new resources (like Holy Power or Embers) to any existing classes or specs soon. (Source)

Oh well, I guess there won't be any new resource system for Arcane in the next expac. Maybe they at least scrap Mana Adept....

Which is stupid. Fire could greatly benefit from a new resource and revamp.

Overall, I like the direction Arcane is going right now (call me crasee)

My only issues with Arcane atm is it doesn't feel like mana is enough of an issue (save with Invocation, which no one takes)

My vision for the "mana matters" design blizzard is trying on us, is that we WILL go oom using our rotation (like a healer) but a good Mage can effectively manage that. I VERY MUCH like you Temporal Rift idea. The problem would be making it feel different than Chaos Bolt. Perhaps make it do a TON of damage, but over 5 seconds? Also, if it uses a lot of mana, how will we get it back?

I like the idea of the mastery shifting from its current state, to it increasing the damage bonus of charges, but what about other spells? One of the few reasons arcane can use bombs is because of the bonus damage mastery gives to them, how would bombs play into your new system?

Crit's viability with us has always more or less been because we hit HARD, and when we crit, things die. In this day and age, that's not enough anymore. I do think that we need to value crit more, but having mana restored on crits isn't the way to do it. Maybe give us something similar to ele's clearcasting?

My suggestions:
1) Give us another button to press! (Fire Blast would work well, make it do more damage, or restore mana based on Arcane Charges?)
2) Keep Mage Bombs alive for us. I like dots.
3) Increase skill cap through increased mana management (ex. Invocation mana levels w/o buff maintenance)
4) Give us a debuff we apply rotationally, where all of our spells have a chance to deal an extra amount of damage (personal stormlash is what I'm thinking of)

Well I -had- a nice long reply typed up before the browser decided to eat it ...

Short: I like the Mastery change, it actually makes us feel more powerful with more Mastery instead of being anchored to an increasingly binary switch, and your system is a good improvement over the current one where our two resources (mana and charges) work against each other. I disagreed with a lot of the details (Barrage, Rift, Repulsion). I'm glad that we had some similar ideas for where to take Arcane.

Blue tweet:Will enhancement get a overhaul/ new resource system anytime soon? Feels old and clunky and enhance got so much potential!
Overall, we don't foresee adding new resources (like Holy Power or Embers) to any existing classes or specs soon. (Source)

Oh well, I guess there won't be any new resource system for Arcane in the next expac. Maybe they at least scrap Mana Adept....

Well, technically, charges aren't really a new resource. It just doesn't have a dedicated display currently.

Granted two things are for sure: Fire's getting revamped/tweaked in 6.0 (as they probably finally realized that after 4 expansions, it's too crit reliant and scales out of control), and the L90 talents are being changed (another thing they were barely able to control). A new resource could fix Fire's scaling, because it could give them the crit they need, and further crit could be used to increase it.

Another thing that I predict is that Arcane will be changed in some way because it's usually either too weak or too strong, and flat out fails 99% of the time on heavy movement "helter-skelter" fights. With the game constantly evolving and adding more "stay out of the fire" mechanics in their fights, they can't have this spec that stands still to do damage.

Frost is our only spec that is actually okay (in terms of mobility and rotation), but it could really benefit from having Deep Freeze (PvE) back. Hell, that could be the DPS tweak they need and make them viable. Granted, one thing they could do to make it better (I said it was 'okay', not 'good') is to fix its scaling somehow. Crits scales too quickly as does Haste, which most Frost Mages are now realizing and switching to the superior Fire and Arcane choices once they hit the ~520 iLevel mark.

Well, technically, charges aren't really a new resource. It just doesn't have a dedicated display currently.

Heh, nice catch! =)

Originally Posted by TacTican

Well I -had- a nice long reply typed up before the browser decided to eat it ...

Short: I like the Mastery change, it actually makes us feel more powerful with more Mastery instead of being anchored to an increasingly binary switch, and your system is a good improvement over the current one where our two resources (mana and charges) work against each other. I disagreed with a lot of the details (Barrage, Rift, Repulsion). I'm glad that we had some similar ideas for where to take Arcane.

Like some of your ideas too. Especially that Arcane Barrage becomes a button you are thrilled to press, not just a lame burst interrupt it is now. Also interesting for PVP - the more charges you are able to fit in - the more burst ABarr provides. AM being a powerful charge spender is interesting too. However I feel PVP mobility is at a disadvantage as you'll have ABarr on 15 sec cd, tiny Fireblast on 8 sec cd and negligent Ice Lance. Maybe not such a big deal if Blizz is to reduce the number and power of instants in 6.0.

Originally Posted by Dragon9870

Another thing that I predict is that Arcane will be changed in some way because it's usually either too weak or too strong, and flat out fails 99% of the time on heavy movement "helter-skelter" fights. With the game constantly evolving and adding more "stay out of the fire" mechanics in their fights, they can't have this spec that stands still to do damage.

Blizz needs to at least give up on lv90 talents, incorporate mana management within Arcane itself and leave mana concerns out of the equation for Fire and Frost. Because the only reason lv90 talents got their damage part in the first place - is due to Fire and Frost not caring about mana. However Blizz really-really wanted to make a mana talent tier so that Arcane could choose between various playstyles... So we got this half-assed design - not flexible enough for Arcane due to the need of actual mana management and tedious as hell for Fire and Frost as they don't give a damn about mana and just have to maintain 15% dmg buff (now equal across all talents).

I'm 77% sure Blizzard will rework lv90 talent for the next expansion and if they still want Arcane to be all about mana, then they might want to bake some mana-restoring abilities in the spec itself. Incanter's Ward can realistically make it only as a passive regen, so brings nothing to discuss. Evocation with no cd baseline is plausible, but too liberating, will mean no mana management, just another tedium of frequently restoring mana. So what if they save Rune of Power as a baseline for Arcane? Whoa, I know what you're thinking - leaving the worst of the bunch and making it baseline will kill all the fun. But hear me out.

I actually was among the people who asked Blizzard to implement Rune of Power. I saw a similar ability in Rift (Pyromancers had it iirc) and thought it looked and felt cool. So basically I asked for an ability to create a ground of power under the mage's feet, that will boost his/her spellpower and mana regen. However they made the rune very small and made all bosses require lots of movement. We all know how it turned out. So what if we could have Rune of Power 2, baseline for Arcane:

Ground of Power(passive) - a purple rune (x2-2.5 larger in size than current) appears under mage's feet after he stands still for [edit] 2 seconds. While remaining inside the rune, the mage has his/her mana regen boosted by 75% and reduces all damage taken by 15%.

This passive will compliment the stacking charges mechanics, provide mana-management (if it's still the way to go in 6.0), but will still be flexible. With it the mage has some room for movement, the rune will be replaced in 2 seconds centered on the mage if he/she moves a little to the side. The mage doesn't lose the buff though and even if he/she has to move away from the rune, it will be placed automatically as soon as he/she remains stationary for 2 seconds. The damage reduction is great for PVP to fight against ranged, to survive stealth ambushes or stunlocks.

I'm 77% sure Blizzard will rework lv90 talent for the next expansion---

Ground of Power(passive) - a purple rune (x2-2.5 larger in size than current) appears under mage's feet after he stands still for 3 seconds. While remaining inside the rune, the mage has his/her mana regen boosted by 75% and reduces all damage taken by 15%.

So what do you guys think? Is it ok or does it still suck?

Do you mean "rework what they have" or "trash them and design new talents"? If the former, I'm done with Mage. If the latter, I'd be pretty happy.

- Fire's scaling will be changed, dramatically
- L90 talents will be gone forever (though they may adapt something from them for Arcane's Mana regen if they wish to keep Arcane as the Mana DPS spec in the game)

Also likely that Arcane will be given some level of mobility DPS, and Frost's scaling will receive a tweak (but not as huge as Fire).

this is a great idea but the problems i really see are more towards, every class. the ideas you have are great but wow needs to litteraly change at its core, i pray there isnt another class being added to wow when the current new class, alot of people dont really like it.

this is a great idea but the problems i really see are more towards, every class. the ideas you have are great but wow needs to litteraly change at its core, i pray there isnt another class being added to wow when the current new class, alot of people dont really like it.

I too hope they don't add another new class in 6.0.

- WotLK had DKs and it took them til the end of Cata/early MoP to get them somewhat situated
- Cataclysm was just such a mess so there wasn't much time to fix things. Plus they condensed the talent trees and forced us into the first two tiers or whatever shit it was.
- MoP had Monks and revamped Warlocks (basically a new class now), so little time to bother with the other 9, in addition to the even worse talent trees (the design I actually like better, but not when they fucking lied about their design being about "balance and choice")

Maybe Expansion #5 will have no new class and instead be heavily focused on tweaking underperforming/specs in dire need of tweaking.

Arcane mages need to have dps balanced around 4-5 spells instead of 2-3. That's ALL that needs to change about the class for it to always be viable w/o being boring or OP. This original post doesn't address the #1 criticism of arcane by the community at large, it's largely a 1 button spec that's boring as hell.

Like a 1 min CD that for 10 seconds summons a Rune of Power increasing your spellpower if you stand on it.

Originally Posted by Vegas82

Arcane mages need to have dps balanced around 4-5 spells instead of 2-3. That's ALL that needs to change about the class for it to always be viable w/o being boring or OP. This original post doesn't address the #1 criticism of arcane by the community at large, it's largely a 1 button spec that's boring as hell.